Sabres use Aud in film to entice fans
By HENRY L. DAVIS
News Staff Reporter
8/27/2003
HARRY SCULL JR./Buffalo News
Ex-Sabre Rene Robert, left, and current Sabre Curtis Brown stand in the crease Tuesday for a "hockeymentary" being filmed in the shuttered and venerable Memorial Auditorium. The film will be used to rekindle fan interest.
The air smells musty, the lights don't work and a layer of cobwebby grime covers the seats, but even a seedy Memorial Auditorium still holds the power to evoke the fondest of sports memories. At least, the Buffalo Sabres hope so.
The hockey team on Tuesday cracked open the sealed doors to the old Aud, which closed in 1996 when HSBC Arena opened, to start filming a "hockeymentary" that will be shown during the season to help fans forget last year's problems and whip up enthusiasm for the future.
Workers broke ground for the Aud on Dec. 19, 1938, and the building opened Oct. 14, 1940. It was conceived as a convention center and played that role for many years until sporting events and concerts took center stage.
Today, the Aud feels as though the doors were shut immediately after the last event and the plug was pulled on the power.
There are still cups under some of the seats. The beam of a flashlight caught an elbow pad sitting among a pile of trash in the Sabres locker room. A display case in the hallway lists the top 10 scorers in the National Hockey League as of April 7, 1996, one week before the Sabres played their last game in the building.
Despite the dinginess of the surroundings, the building remains an icon in the community that the Sabres brass hope to turn to their advantage.
"We want to help fans associate with the past and with the present," said Michael Gilbert, vice president for communications. "There has been a lot of rich history here."
"We are coming through a bad period in the history of the franchise, so we're trying to create an awareness of some of the great moments of the past, many of which involved the Aud," he said. "We're also trying to convey to people that we're entering a new era."
Earlier this year, the Sabres sent a two-hour DVD to thousands of full- and partial-season ticket holders that chronicled the team's history. It was so well-received the marketing gurus saw the popular auditorium as another way to use the past to connect with longtime fans.
Gilbert Perreault and Rene Robert were among a host of former and current players who shot short segments for the planned 30-minute film that mines the glory years once again.
Their hair is grayer, but squint a little and you could envision the electric atmosphere on many nights as the flashy youngsters streaked down the ice with Rick Martin as the famed French Connection. Listen closely, and you could hear the faint echo of "Thank you, Sabres."
"It's sad to see the way the building looks, but it brings back great memories," said Robert, after filming a scene with Sabre winger Curtis Brown. "Yes, the smell in here is bad, but this to me is my home."
Perreault recounted his first impressions as he walked in from the dark lobby to the auditorium, where the camera crew lights cast moody shadows.
He took in the center ice scoreboard high above, the box seats at the far end of the rink, the steeply inclined yellow, red, blue and orange seats that made the auditorium so much more intimate and intense than other arenas.
He recalled his and the Sabres' first home game on Oct. 15, 1970, a historic meeting of the the old and new in hockey when the gifted rookie Perreault played against the veteran Jean Beliveau, the Montreal Canadians' nifty playmaker who inspired him and who skated with equally stunning grace.
His greatest memory?
The same as Robert's and other Sabres of that era: the 1975 Stanley Cup finals against the Philadelphia Flyers. And, if there is one game to choose above all others, it is, as any fan knows, the first home game of the series. Robert scored the game-winning goal in overtime in an almost magical contest also remembered for the bat that Jim Lorentz swatted out of the air with his stick, an ice-level fog so thick it forced 11 breaks in the action, and a city utterly crazy in love with its team.
"There was no air conditioning, and people skated around with sheets to get rid of the fog. There were standing ovations. The mood was unbelievable for the team and the city. We were young and loved it," recalled Robert.
Robert said that although the Sabres didn't win a Stanley Cup during his years here, he still looks back on his career in Buffalo with enormous pride, as well as with gratitude to fans whose rabid support helped make many seasons special.
"Every game I dressed for was a dream come true," he said.
The filming of what the team calls a "hockeymentary" is scheduled to continue today.wed Plans are to show the piece on television and display segments during the season on the Jumbotron.
The Sabres, in another bid to rekindle the feel-good spirit that once surrounded the team, turned to retired sports broadcaster Rick Azar to serve as emcee of the film.
It was a choice again based on history and a role he could not resist. Azar, part of the legendary WKBW anchor team that included Irv Weinstein and Tom Jolls, served as master of ceremonies in the Sabres' first NHL game played in Buffalo.
"It was a fun time and an anxious time," said Azar, who now teaches college English part time and hosts a weekly radio jazz show in North Carolina while perfecting his golf game. "Professionally, it was great."